

BERTHA. 



Men are ever 

 A mystery to themselves, and 'tis their doom 

 To err through their own fantasies, and make 

 A life-long anguish of some fancied good. 

 Our passions are the minsters of fate. 



Much, very much of the unhappiness of daily life is caused 

 by a want of self-knowledge, — an ignorance of our own nature 

 with its capacities and exigencies. The joyous spirit of youth 

 looks not into the depths of life ; the sunshine of a happy 

 heart is shed over all things present and future, and what 

 marvel, therefore, that the eye should be dazzled by excess of 

 light ? But how terrible is the late awakening of the soul to a 

 perception of its own wants, — to a certainty of its own lifelong 

 thirst for that which is unattained and unattainable ! 



My early friend, Bertha Woodford, was one of those lovely 

 impersonations of joyousness which sometimes cross our path 

 in life, and which always come like a human sunbeam to the 



